Vincent Ozoude
Every Nigerian family and enterprise know the price of unreliable energy: blackouts at properties, idle industrial machines in manufacturing factories, rising diesel payments, and failing companies and industries. Those of us who generate, transmit, distribute and regulate electrical energy really feel that weight personally and owe the general public candour in regards to the problem and, extra importantly, readability on the best way ahead.
Moments like this tempt a sector into finger-pointing. I’d reasonably we deal with them as a mirror. Nigeria’s electrical energy provide is a chain that runs from the fuel nicely for a gas-fired plant to the meter: fuel manufacturing and transport, technology, transmission, distribution and, lastly, cost. When any hyperlink is strained, the entire system feels it. When energy crops go quiet, it’s not often for lack of Generation from the fuel generators or expert engineers. More typically, they’re constrained by fuel unavailability, evacuation limitations within the electrical energy market, the place market liquidity remains to be being restored.
That analysis is sweet information, as a result of it tells us precisely the place the options lie, and lots of are already in movement.
The authorities has taken daring steps that deserve recognition. The Electricity Act 2023 has opened the market and empowered states. The regulator continues to maneuver the trade ahead with some orders. The federal authorities’s dedication to settle verified legacy money owed owed to technology corporations and fuel suppliers is a important sign of intent, and the Nigerian Independent System Operator now manages the grid with better transparency.
The Honourable Minister of Power has set a clear bar: Nigerians should really feel the advance. We share that aim, and our obligation as non-public operators is to satisfy authorities midway with self-discipline, funding and innovation.
At Transafam Power Limited, that conviction has outlined our journey. When Transcorp Group acquired the Power Generation belongings positioned in Afam-Okoloma, Rivers State, a 966MW put in capability plant that was delivering lower than 10% of this put in capability, solely a fraction of its functionality. Many had written the plant off as yet one more stranded asset.
We noticed one thing completely different: nationwide infrastructure that might be restored by Nigerian capital and Nigerian experience. With affected person funding, we rehabilitated dormant items and steadily grew our out there capability. When fuel constraints at one location threatened output, we didn’t settle for idle capability; we relocated generators nearer to out there fuel. That is our intuition in each disruption: discover a option to hold producing.
Today, Transafam Power stands among the many high technology belongings within the nation. Together with our sister firm, Transcorp Power Plc, Ughelli, we account for about 20% of Nigeria’s put in capability, making the Transcorp Group one of the vital necessary non-public contributors to the nationwide grid. That place just isn’t a privilege; it’s a duty. When our items can be found, tens of millions of Nigerians really feel the distinction, and we maintain ourselves accountable to that commonplace each single day.
Innovation has been central to how we run the plant. We are deepening condition-based and predictive upkeep in order that our items are prepared the second fuel flows, strengthening real-time monitoring of plant efficiency, and tightening the self-discipline of our operations so that each out there megawatt is protected. We deal with reliability as an engineering tradition, not a slogan: rigorous security requirements, cautious stewardship of our gear, and choices grounded in information.
Our best funding, nonetheless, is in individuals. The engineers and technicians who run our crops in Transafam at the moment and at Ughelli are Nigerians, lots of them younger professionals whose expertise we’re intentionally constructing for the long run. We are additionally dedicated to our host communities in Rivers and Delta States, as a result of a energy plant thrives solely when the individuals round it share in its progress.
Three sensible priorities would speed up the restoration of electrical energy. First, allow us to handle gas-to-power as one worth chain. Making enough devoted fuel out there with agency fuel provide agreements backed by credible cost assurance, alongside nearer coordination of upstream funding and upkeep inside the fuel sector, would curtail fuel unavailability. Continued funding in fuel processing and transport pipeline infrastructure to gas-fired energy crops will be certain that Nigeria’s plentiful fuel reserves translate into electrical energy for properties and industries.
Second, allow us to maintain market liquidity. Consistent implementation of the debt settlement programme, along with immediate cost of month-to-month invoices throughout the worth chain, will enable producing corporations to pay fuel suppliers, preserve their machines and appeal to recent capital. A market that settles its obligations predictably is a market investor will fund.
Third, evacuation limitations must be tackled head-on. Weak transmission and distribution infrastructure must be upgraded, revamped and new infrastructure constructed to cater for the rising inhabitants and demand.
Let us deepen collaboration. A standing platform the place technology corporations, fuel suppliers, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the system operator and the regulator assessment provide dangers forward of time would assist the trade anticipate shocks reasonably than react to them. Transafam is able to contribute its operational expertise to such an effort.
Power is the place the non-public sector’s dedication to Nigeria is examined most, and the place its rewards are most seen. Every megawatt restored is a hospital or clinic that retains its gear and lights on, a pupil who reads after darkish, a small- to medium-scale enterprise and industrial firm that improves manufacturing and hires extra fingers by means of job creation, a nation rising in GDP and a group with quick progress in city and rural improvement.
Nigeria’s energy restoration just isn’t the duty of presidency alone, nor of any single firm. It is a shared duty. Transafam Power stands prepared as a reliable accomplice in that work: a sturdy, Nigerian-run technology firm with the capability, the individuals and the resolve to maintain the lights on, dedicated to enhancing lives and remodeling Africa, one megawatt at a time.
Engr Ozoude writes from Afam, Rivers State. He is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Transafam Power Limited, one of many energy subsidiaries of Transnational Corporation Plc, Africa’s main listed conglomerate with strategic investments in energy, hospitality and vitality.
